Looking for help on selecting a 3D Printer for an Eye Hospital in South India
I am a volunteer at Aravind Eye Hospital in South India. I visited this forum (I think this one???) about three years ago, looking for help in selecting a 3D printer for making prosthetic eyes. The help was very useful, but the proposed project came to an end when we had to deal with the cost of a 3D scanner to copy the molds that were made to allow the new eye to fit properly into a patient's head.
The hospital website for those who might be interested, is www.aravind.org
Anyway, the hospital is again looking into 3D printers, but they don't know enough to even know what questions to ask. I know some of the basics, but not nearly enough. Last time, I found the Stratasys printers to be very professional, very capable, but priced higher than the others I was looking into.
The purpose of this thread, is to see if I can find someone, preferably in South India, to help guide the hospital as to what to buy. I guess the best word would be "consultant", or maybe "volunteer consultant".
Aravind provides free eye care to a huge number of poor people in South India. This includes spectacles, medicines, and surgery. The website will show how many people are being helped. There are various parts the hospital makes at their manufacturing facility Aurolab (www.aurolab.com). They make many eye care products, and in fact, they are now machining the parts to make a low cost microscope camera, to allow any doctor to quickly make a video recording of a surgery. This, and other projects, in my opinion, could benefit from having a 3D printer to quickly make prototype parts for testing. That's just one of the uses I can see for the printer, but none of us at the hospital know enough to realize how useful a 3D printer might be.
I don't see them buying a "hobby printer". I'm pretty sure they need a quality printer that makes high resolution parts.
I read before how printers can print either the "resin" (or whatever material is used) and something like sand, which allow hollow parts to be made, with the "sand" coming out after the parts are made. This also allows the bottom of the parts to include detail.
They already use 3D software for design purposes. I imagine at some point they would need to change to software that also can provide the information to a 3D printer.
Finally, as I see it, the best way to learn about 3D printing is to buy a 3D printer and start using it. This would be a wonderful learning experience. So maybe we need a printer that is "good enough" to grow with, but not too advanced.
If anyone has some spare time, and would like to help out, please let me know, and I'll pass the information on to the right people at the hospital. Or, if anyone has questions that might help sort out what we need, I'll try to get the answers.
Thanks!!
